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adequate conception of the feeling in Him which we call 

 pleasure. All we can say is, that everything shows us that 

 God is good, and wills that His creatures should be good also 

 in their degree. Groodness in man is accompanied by the 

 appreciation of goodness in other beings, and therefore chiefly 

 in the Divine Being, in whom it is found in all perfection. 

 Therefore, they who appreciate the divine character as they 

 ought are good — are, to a certain extent, such as God would 

 have them be, and so we say that God is pleased with them, 

 and with the praises they offer Him. 



The next objection, as stated by Mr. Spencer, is, ''that 

 actions instigated by an unselfish sympathy, or by a pure love 

 of rectitude, are intrinsically sinful." 



It seems probable that the allusion here is to the thirteenth 

 of the " Articles of Religion," in which it is declared that 

 " works done before justification," or, as further explained, 

 ''before the grace of Christ and the inspiration of His Spirit, 

 are not pleasant to God, forasmuch as they spring not of faith 

 in Jesus Christ," and that not being done as God hath willed 

 and commanded them to be done, " we doubt not but they 

 have the nature of sin ;" or it may be that Mr. Spencer had 

 in his mind some passages of Scripture to the same efi'ect, as 

 " without faith it is impossible to please Him " (Heb. xi. 6), 

 and " they that are in the flesh cannot please God " (Rom. 

 viii. 8). Now, it cannot be necessary to observe here, except 

 for the information of some outsiders who may read the Trans- 

 actions of this Society, that the Christian doctrine is this — 

 that owing to the fallen nature which we all inherit from the 

 first human pair, no works that we can do, even when assisted 

 by grace, are free from much that is imperfect and sinful ; 

 and that still more is this the case when we are not so assisted. 

 Thus, so far from saying that an act springing from a purely 

 good and unselfish motive is intrinsically sinful, the Chris- 

 tian teaching is that such an act is never done ; that, however 

 excellent a deed may appear in the eye of man, in the sight 

 of God it is so mixed up with sinful thoughts and motives 

 that it can only be made acceptable to Him when it is done 

 in faith, and that, for the sake of the atonement made by His 

 Son, whereby what is wrong in it is, as it were, washed out 

 and not had in remembrance before Him. In the Christian 

 system, faith is set forth as the root of all that is good in our 

 character, and as that which makes us to be accounted righ- 

 teous in God's sight. Thus, works that are done in faith are 

 looked upon, notwithstanding all their imperfections, as good. 

 The goodness in which they are deficient is imputed to them. 

 But without faith they are not pleasing to God ; and, as this 



